Erika Kirk, the widow of the late Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Executive Director Charlie Kirk, posted on Instagram recently sharing some reflections on grief following the murder of her husband. Charlie would have been 32 today, Oct. 14, and Erika received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her husband at the White House.
“There is no linear blueprint for grief. One day you’re collapsed on the floor crying out the name Jesus in between labored breaths,” Erika said in a post Friday, Oct. 10, next to a video montage of her husband and family.
“The next you’re playing with your children in the living room, surrounded by family photos,” she said, “and feeling a rush of something you can only attempt to define as divinely planted and bittersweet joy as a smile breaks through on your face.”
RELATED: Erika Kirk Delivers Powerful Speech Forgiving Charlie Kirk’s Assassin During Memorial
Erika Kirk Says Suffering ‘Amplified’ Her Love for Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk, who cofounded TPUSA in 2012, was assassinated on Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. On Sept. 18, the organization announced that Erika Kirk would become TPUSA’s new CEO and chair of the board. During Charlie Kirk’s memorial service on Sept. 21, Erika made headlines and received widespread praise for forgiving her husband’s assassin.
“They say time heals. But love doesn’t ask to be healed. Love asks to be remembered,” said Erika on Instagram. “It’s humbling to realize that this magnitude of suffering didn’t steal my love for my husband. It amplified it. It crystallized it.”
“I carry my Charlie in every breath, in every ache, and in every quiet act of day to day living as I attempt to relearn what that rhythm will be,” she said. “And what I’ve realized through these past 30 days is the greater the suffering, the purer the love. And I have never loved him more than I do now.”
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